Ride or Die, Baby!

The library doors shut behind me with a heavy click. Cold air hit my face. I pulled my hoodie tighter and started walking. Three blocks. That was all. Straight down the main road, left onto my street, and I was home. I heard it before I saw it. A low, steady engine. Not a car. Deeper. Rougher. I kept my eyes forward. Kept walking. The sound stayed right behind me. I glanced over my shoulder once. Black motorcycle. Full-face helmet. Dark visor. No markings I could see in the streetlight. It matched my pace exactly. I walked faster. The engine didn’t change. It just stayed with me, three or four meters back, like it had all the time in the world. My heart started beating harder. I told myself it was nothing. People rode motorcycles. This was a public road. Coincidence. I crossed the next intersection without waiting for the light. The bike followed, slow and smooth, never getting closer, never falling behind. Two blocks. I could feel the vibration of the engine in my chest. Or maybe that was just my pulse. I turned onto my street. The motorcycle slowed. It didn’t pass me. It didn’t turn away. It just rolled to a near stop a little way back and idled there, engine ticking in the quiet. I didn’t look again. I walked the last stretch to my building with my keys already in my hand. My fingers were stiff around them. Behind me the engine stayed low and steady for several long seconds. Then it pulled away. Smooth. No sudden acceleration. No glance that I could see. Just gone. I stood on the steps longer than I needed to, listening until the sound faded completely. Earlier that day the hallway outside the science wing had been packed between classes. I was trying to get to my locker before the next lecture started when a shoulder blocked my path. Drew Kell. One of the guys who always hung around Jose Ravell’s table. Tall, loud, always smirking like the rules were optional for him. He leaned one hand on the locker beside my head, boxing me in just enough that I had to stop. “You’re Elara, right?” he said. “Quinn?” I kept my bag between us. “I need to get to class.” He didn’t move. “You’ve been looking at him a lot. Jose. Everybody notices.” Heat climbed up my neck. I hated that my face gave me away so easily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Sure you don’t.” His eyes dropped for a second, then came back up. “He’s not exactly the boyfriend type. Just so you know.” “I didn’t ask.” “I’m just saying. Girls who stare like that usually end up disappointed. Or worse.” I tried to step around him. He shifted, still not touching me but not letting me pass either. “Move,” I said, quieter than I wanted. He opened his mouth again— And then the air changed. Jose Ravell was suddenly there. He didn’t push through the crowd. People just… made space. Black jacket, dark jeans, the kind of stillness that made everyone else look like they were trying too hard. He stopped a few feet away. His eyes went to Drew first. He didn’t raise his voice. He barely even spoke. “Walk away.” Two words. Flat. Final. Drew’s smirk disappeared. He dropped his hand from the locker like it had burned him. “I was just talking,” Drew muttered. Jose didn’t answer. He just looked at him. Drew backed up, hands lifted in a fake casual gesture, and disappeared into the crowd without another word. The hallway noise rushed back in. Jose’s gaze shifted to me. I expected him to leave the same way he’d arrived. Instead he stayed. “You all right, Elara?” My name. He said my name like he’d used it before. I hadn’t told him. We’d never spoken. I’d only ever watched him from across rooms and courtyards, the same way half the campus did—except most of them looked away when he noticed. I never managed to look away fast enough. “I’m fine,” I said. My voice came out thinner than I wanted. He studied me for a second longer. Not smiling. Not unkind. Just… looking. Like he was checking something off a list only he could see. Then he nodded once, turned, and walked off down the hall. People parted for him again without being asked. I stood there with my locker half-open and my pulse still going too fast, replaying the sound of my own name in his mouth. He shouldn’t have known it. That night I couldn’t settle. I made tea I didn’t drink. Opened my scholarship notes and stared at the same paragraph three times without reading it. The apartment felt too quiet. Every time a car passed outside I found myself listening for a deeper engine. Eventually I gave up and went to the window. I didn’t turn the lamp on. I just stood to the side of the curtain and looked down at the street. It was there. The same black motorcycle. Parked directly across from my building. Engine off. Rider still on it, helmet still on, visor dark. Not moving. Just watching the windows. My stomach dropped, slow and heavy. I didn’t step back. I didn’t close the curtain. I stayed there in the dark, staring down at the shape that had followed me home earlier and had now decided to stay. The rider didn’t look up. Or maybe he did and the visor hid it. Either way, he didn’t leave. I counted my own breaths and tried to tell myself it still meant nothing. The longer I stood there, the less I believed it.